Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sorghum Vs. Molasses

Molasses Cake, an old Southern favorite, is typically served unfrosted with butter or cream cheese. It's a simple cake, flavored with good ol' fashioned blackstrap molasses. But I like sorghum better than molasses, so for my cookbook, I modified the traditional molasses cake to become Sweet Sorghum Syrup Cake:

Sorghum comes from the sorghum cane, and it's rich in iron, calcium, and potassium. It's lighter in color than molasses, and it's a bit milder in taste as well. Molasses is a by-product of the sugar-making process, but it's also rich in iron, calcium, and potassium.

The two can be used interchangeably in recipes depending on how strong you like your flavor. For some reason though, sorghum just seems more Southern ... about as Southern as mint juleps and iced sweet tea. So it seemed a better fit for my cookbook. The stuff I'm using came from Marvell, Arkansas.

I've been topping my Sorghum Cake with Soy Whip and fresh strawberries for breakfast each morning. I figure it's better to eat cake for breakfast than to eat it as a snack later in the day. At least, I'm taking in the big calories in first thing in morning, while I still have time to work them off, right?

What a coincidence! I'm working on molasses and fig muffins and this very moment! I loooove molasses, this cake looks so scrumptious. And you are totally right about cake in the morning. It is the breakfast of champions, after all!